No. 9, August 2007
by Archangelo Leone
Italians in Utica during the 30s pledged allegiance to two flags, American and Italian. It was difficult for me as a child to look at portraits of Benito Mussolini and the other Italian leaders. Pop had large frames on the wall filled with the pompous puss of Il Duce and the Fuhrer with his outstretched arm.
It was tough living in the slums as the kids always poked fun at me and I got into a lot of scraps. I was relieved-in a way- when Pop passed away in December of 1941 around the time the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor. Mom was left alone and she was slowly dying of cancer. She knew the government would draft her only son soon. Mom passed away just before I donned my uniform to fight against my cousins in Italy. Father Pizzoglio, the pastor of St. Mary of Mt. Carmel Church backed off on a lot of his Fascist speeches from the pulpit. Too many Americans and members of our congregation were losing sons to the World War now.
In July 1943, Il Duce met with his cronies in Rome. They gave him the proverbial finger. We had just invaded Sicily and, after two decades of rule, his buddies threw in the towel. Mussolini met with the King and learned that King Victor Emmanuel III was giving him the boot. They arrested him then took him to a secret police headquarters. All of Italy was looking for him as his reign had a damaging impact upon their lives. They would later hang him by his heels in an empty gas station in northern Italy along
with his mistress. People poured out into the streets to celebrate his downfall. Long before he died, my family and I had taken down the Fascist portraits. I don't know where they are today but
I'm glad they are gone. No more bruises from neighborhood kids.
That's what politics was all about when I was a kid and later, a warrior who fought against his own family in Italy. That's why the sight and sound of war gives me goose bumps and makes me sick when I hear about the kids who are being crippled and killed in senseless wars. My father was a Fascist and even a little kid
like me could see he took a wrong turn in the road of Life. After Mussolini embraced Hitler, Pop became " All-American!"
My father kept all of the literature his relatives sent to him from Italy and I wish I had them today. Pop used to tell about the kids wearing uniforms to school and when the kids went to Rome to hear Il Duce speak in 1940. I was 15 at the time and could care less about him or anything back in Italy.
One cousin was a member of the Avanguardista which was a Fascist youth program. I recall several leaflets and paperback books with kids in uniform on the covers. I think someone in my family burned them when Italy quit.
Today, one cousin lives in northern France after her parents moved there with Fascist troops and their "kissing cousins", the German army. She worked in a bank then and I have her e-mail address but am hesitant to contact her. Another
cousin resides in Pignola and I have her address but, again, I am reluctant to disturb her peace of many years.
This all constitutes the human residue of WWII and I was there to see it all. The family was devastated by war and, even today, members of the Leone family are scattered to the winds. My family; for better or worse. Ala Famiglia!
copyright Anthony Leone, 2007
Family Fascist